Electricity: Power supply drops to 3,628mw

ELECTRICITY supply, yesterday, dropped to 3,628 megawatts, mw from 3,808mw on Tuesday, thus forcing many consumers to live in darkness. According to the Nigeria System Operator, average daily supply before yesterday was over 4,000 mw, with the daily maximum generation for the month of June averaging at 4,171 megawatts.

Vanguard also learnt that, power has been restored at Trans Amadi following the completion of maintenance. Confirming this to Vanguard, spokesperson for the Transmission Company of Nigeria, Mrs. Seun Olagunju, said: “Trans Amadi Gas Power Station in Rivers State has been out of production since November 2016. It returned to the grid system on Saturday, July 1, and currently contributing between 12 to 17mw.”

Meanwhile, the Federal Government has pledged to complete over 200 projects on the national grid to improve power supply for distribution. The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, made this known in Lagos while delivering a keynote address at the Nigeria Energy Forum (NEF), entitled: ‘Roadmap for Incremental, Stable and Uninterrupted Electricity Supply in Nigeria’. He said that the TCN is currently focussed on completing over 200 projects it has at hand to ensure smooth transmission of energy to the national grid.

Represented by Mr. Louis Edozie, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Power, Fashola said, “Electricity is a very topical subject in the country; lack of it affects production, security, comfort and standard of education. If we all draw our energy needs from the grid, we will need over 13,000 Megawatts (MW), but unfortunately, the maximum we have from the grid is just 4,700MW. “This is not what we want and this is not where we want to be. The government inherited a very weak transmission; throughout 2016, there was a challenge of energy evacuation in Eastern part of the country.

“This evacuation problem which had been on for over 15 years in Calabar, Ikot-Ekpene, Alaoji, Ugwuaji Transmission Line had been addressed and the transmission is now in operation.”

He added that the transmission line would aid the smooth evacuation of energy generated by power plants in the Eastern part to the national grid and that the federal government was concentrating on legacy generation projects inherited from the past administration.